


The Traveling Doctor

by NebulousMistress



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Legends and Stories of Pegasus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 01:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8036737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: Legend says that if you have need, if plague has come, if your child is sick, the Doctor will come. Plead your case to the Ring and the Doctor may hear.





	The Traveling Doctor

There is a story in Pegasus of a Doctor. No one remembers his name, not anymore, but no one has to. They remember his title.

The Traveling Doctor.

His deeds change on the retelling, their focus dependent on who tells the story. No two stories are exactly the same, though underneath they all say the same thing.

He is a Doctor.

*****

“Ah just donnae feel... Sorry, lad, Ah cannae explain it without sounding like Ah'm insulting someone.”

“No problem, Doc, just, if you want to retire why not go back to Earth?”

“Earth isnae home, lad, nae for me. Sometimes it feels like Atlantis isnae home, not anymore. Pegasus is home and Ah should be ou'there, making a difference.”

“If that's how you feel...”

“Aye, lad. Ah've tendered my resignation, Ah've spoken with Teyla, Ah'll start in New Athos. They'll give me a gate address for me next stop.”

“And then you'll disappear.”

“Ah won'disappear. Nae really. Ah trust Teyla could find me if she wanted.”

“If you're sure, Doc.”

*****

The stories of the Traveling Doctor all begin the same way. He walks through the gate, unannounced and unknown. His strange accent marks him as a traveler and an outsider, maybe even a runner. He walks into the village, unerringly, without direction, and heads to the nearest inn.

Then he says the same thing every time.

“Hello dearie. Ah'm a doctor.”

Some say the Ancestors send him because there's always need. Some say he is an Ancestor because he always knows where to go. Some say he's just a man with a great heart and a need to help, though this is not a popular explanation.

After all, how could a mere man possibly perform his deeds?

*****

The village was small, cozy, rough around the edges. The Doctor could hear the rattling breaths, the coughing in the distance, the small children sniffling and crying.

The Inarian's were right. This place needed his help. He'd thank them for sending him here but he didn't remember their address.

Never mind that. He was here now. That's what mattered. He made his way to the small pub near the center of town, inhaling the constant mustiness of what he'd already deduced was a factor in the village's lung problems. He could see the white patches of creeping death crawling up the sides of the houses. Would they have to move the village? Or would stone foundations fix it? He wouldn't know until he'd had time to examine the worst affected.

He stepped into the pub, walked up to the bar where the barmaid tended.

“Hello, dearie,” he said. “Ah'm a doctor. Ah came as soon as Ah could.”

She dropped the clay mug she'd been polishing as she stared at him in disbelief.

“All Ah ask is food, shelter, and somewhere ta set up.”

*****

The Traveling Doctor isn't a plague-bringer. Every story makes sure to emphasize that. Plague-bringers would bring their plagues, charge exorbitant fees for cures, then leave the decimated populace before people recovered and realized what had happened.

The Traveling Doctor never asks for more than a meal, a place to sleep, and a place to work.

And if a village refuses his services he doesn't protest. He doesn't hawk himself louder like an oil salesman or a plague-bringer. He simply sighs, his shoulders faltering, his eyes closed. Then he nods, asks for a gate address, and then he's gone.

And he is never seen there again.

*****

“They ran me ou'of town.”

Halling laid a hand on the Doctor's shoulders. “It is not your fault,” he said. “Some do not wish the help. They are too proud. Or maybe they have fallen to a plague-bringer before.”

The Doctor nodded. “Ah know. It doesnae make it any easier.”

“It never is, Doctor.”

The Doctor looked hopeful. “Before Ah ask fer another address, is there anyone...”

Halling laughed. “If you must, there is one. Anika is heavy with child. She paces with knowing though the Lantean doctor told her it would be a month yet.”

The Doctor smiled. “All Ah ask is food, a bed, and a place ta set up.”

*****

The Traveling Doctor never askes allegiances, never cares for sides in a conflict, never turns down a patient due to uniform. He never picks up a weapon though once he did fight.

Once.

The conflict changes with the telling, the sides shifting fluid with time and politics, but the story itself doesn't change.

Once an enemy leader was brought to the Traveling Doctor, injured on the battlefield. The Doctor immediately began to bind his wounds. This angered the coalition who allowed the Doctor to stay and they sent in soldiers to assassinate their enemy.

The Doctor didn't wield a weapon, not as the story goes. But he did drive off the soldiers, shielding his patient with his own body. Every life is important, he says. Every single one.

No matter who or what they are.

*****

The culling beam took them all.

The Doctor watched as the villagers he treated fell to their knees in front of their Wraith keepers and pleaded, begged, cried in ecstasy. The Wraith took no notice of them, instead coming for him.

“You. Come with me.”

The Doctor followed. “Ah've been infected with the Hoffan virus,” he warned. “Ye'll have ta kill me.”

The Wraith stayed silent until they reached the center of the hive. Their Queen sat regal and deadly in her throne, long red hair bound in gems and pearls.

“Madam,” the Doctor greeted.

“It has some measure of politeness,” the Queen admitted. “More than most. And it is not afraid.”

“Should Ah be?”

The Queen rose from her throne, shimmering silks trailing behind her. “Men like you fall to their knees before me, begging for their lives. Men like you betray their own mates and children hoping I will take pity. Men like you scream and soil themselves as I feed on them despite promises imagined.” She circled him as she spoke, a predator eyeing a tasty morsel, an interesting toy.

“Ah am not a man like tha'.”

“I can see that. My worshipers tell stories of you. The Traveling Doctor. Tell me, how far would you go to save a life?”

The Doctor looked her right in the eye as she circled to his front. “Ah will cure what disease Ah can, treat what symptoms can be managed, an'if nothing can be done, Ah will ease what pain Ah can. Every life is important, even if Ah am the one who has ta end it.”

“Every life?”

“Aye, Madam.”

“Come with me, then,” she said. With a nod her two guards followed. “What is it you require? You may ask for anything you wish.”

The Doctor shook his head. “All Ah ask is food, somewhere ta sleep, and a place ta work.”

“A small price for such a task,” the Queen said as she waved her hand. A wall slide aside to reveal a small room. A tiny nest set into the wall held a tiny bundle that shifted and hissed and hiccuped.

“A wee babe?” the Doctor asked. He stepped inside and unwrapped the bundle.

An infant queen.

“There is something wrong with her and she is too young to heal herself,” the Queen said.

The Doctor could see the moment she stopped being the Wraith Queen and became a worried mother. He knew worried mothers. This he could help. He hoped. “Would ye like ta hold her while Ah examine her?”

He hadn't known Wraith Queens purred to their offspring.

*****

The Traveling Doctor did not take payment but he was often plied with gifts. Many of those gifts he would barter away at the next village, traded for knowledge, medicines, or to buy a hungry child a meal.

But there were some gifts he kept.

A traveler's coat in shimmering hivesilk, light enough to wear on the hottest days, strong enough to protect him from small weapons.

A healer's kit wrapped up in buttery-soft Athosian leather, the kit's pieces picked up from a dozen different worlds.

A black bag of cracked leather filled with medicines distilled from plants, fungi, alcohols, and a hundred miracles of chemistry.

Eventually a cane of shining wood as light as it was hard.

And a child.

*****

“He was orphaned during a culling. He has nowhere else to go, Doctor, and despite the tales you are not immortal.”

“Aye, nor would Ah want ta be.”

“He knows how to track and hunt and he's a quick learner. He heard stories of you and he's been searching for you for two years.”

“'E's seven year old! 'E's been sarchin' fer two year?!”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The child looked up at the Traveling Doctor and hoped against all hope.

Eventually the Doctor caved. His knees ached in the mornings and the trek from gate to gate seemed longer every day. “Ah'll take him in,” he allowed. “As an apprentice.”

*****

The stories of the Doctor's Apprentice are less well known than the Traveling Doctor. Perhaps by the time the first Apprentice became the Doctor people began to take the stories for granted. That there would always be a Traveling Doctor who walked the gates and tended the wounded. That during every plague or after every culling the gate would open and the Doctor would come, clad in the silks of the enemy and carrying the tools of mercy.

And so the Traveling Doctor still walks the gates. His voice has changed over the centuries as the hivesilk mantle is passed from master to apprentice. But still he carries the healer's kit in its soft Athosian leather, the ancient black bag filled with medicines, and the carved cane of his age.

Maybe he is an Ancient, constantly reborn into the orphan boy who follows him. Maybe the mantle was more than a simple gift from a powerful Wraith Queen who loved her daughter as any mother. Maybe he's just a man who taken on an apprentice when he gets old, passes on his knowledge as best he can, and then dies.

No one knows where the first Traveling Doctor met his end or if he walks the gates still. But those who hear the stories have an idea.

His life ceased long ago. In a village. Surrounded by lives he'd saved. With his Apprentice at his side ready to wear the hivesilk mantle, lift the crumbling black bag, take on the title of Traveling Doctor.

 


End file.
